Insights
Glossary
How CommsRx uses the terms that come up in pharma communications and AI. Each definition is written to stand on its own.
- Answer engine
- An AI system that answers a question in its own words and cites sources, such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or Google's AI Overviews, instead of returning a list of links.
- Answer engine optimization (AEO)
- The practice of making accurate, clear, well-sourced information easy for answer engines to find and cite. In regulated communications the aim is an accurate answer, not a dominant one.
- Answer pack
- A set of short, dated answers to the questions people ask about a product or disease, each citing a primary source such as the label, written to be lifted whole by a person or an answer engine.
- Approved use
- Where and how an approved message may be used: the market, audience, channel, locale, lifecycle stage, intended use and type of material. A message approved for one use is not automatically approved for another.
- Complete response letter (CRL)
- The FDA's letter explaining that it cannot approve an application in its present form, and what would be needed.
- Forbidden version
- A wrong version of an approved statement, written down in advance: for example, the statement with its qualifier dropped, its population widened, or a comparison added. A draft that reproduces one word for word is blocked.
- Generative engine optimization (GEO)
- A term used largely interchangeably with answer engine optimization, for making information easy for generative AI systems to find, use and cite.
- Key messages
- The one to four things a strategy needs a specific audience to understand at a specific moment, each with its proof points and the things it must never say.
- Label
- The FDA-approved prescribing information for a medicine. After approval, promotion must be consistent with it: the indication, population, dosing, limitations of use and safety information.
- Message fingerprint
- A record of an approved message in two halves: what it says (the claim, its numbers, scope and qualifiers) and what it does (its approved use, and the job it is approved to do, such as to inform rather than compare).
- Message house
- The structure that organizes a communications program's messages: an overarching statement, the pillars beneath it, and the proof for each.
- Message variant
- A version of an approved message adapted for a different audience, channel or language. A variant may say less than the approved message, never more.
- MLR review
- Review of communications materials by medical, legal and regulatory reviewers before use. Sometimes called PRC (promotional review committee) review.
- "Needs a read."
- CommsRx's label for a version that may be fine but should be looked at by a person, for example because a claim was abstracted far from the approved wording or a required element is missing.
- PDUFA date
- The goal date by which the FDA aims to act on an application, set under the Prescription Drug User Fee Act.
- Pragmatic fingerprint
- The half of a message fingerprint that records what a message does: its approved use and the ways its function could shift, such as from informing to comparing.
- "Ready for review."
- The highest state CommsRx gives to machine-made work. Approval belongs to named human reviewers.
- Semantic fingerprint
- The half of a message fingerprint that records what a message says: the claim, its numbers, scope and qualifiers.
- How often an organization, product or source is cited across a fixed set of questions asked of answer engines.
- Stale
- CommsRx's label for work built on a strategy or messages that have since been re-confirmed. Stale work is flagged, never rewritten or deleted.
- Topline readout
- The first public announcement of a clinical trial's main results, usually whether the primary endpoint was met.